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Knowledge Bank: Capital gets first aviation museum

Nov 5, 2017-The construction of the new aviation museum at Sinamangal, Kathmandu, has completed and is ready to welcome visitors. The museum was built by the Bed Upreti Trust and Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan) after success of similar museum built by Captain Bed Upreti in the mid-western district of Dhangadi.

The museum has been built using a decommissioned Airbus A330 aircraft belonging to Turkish Airlines, which crash landed on Tribhuvan International Airport in March 2015. The crash closed Nepal’s only international airport for four days.

After being kept in storage for more than a year, the decommissioned plane was dismantled and reassembled at Sinamangal. It took Nepali and foreign technicians more than four months to cut the plane into smaller parts. The parts were transported via trucks in the early morning with cranes assisting at narrow bends along the way, reads the press release. It took another nine months to reassemble the plane.

The Bed Uprety Trust is a non-profitable organisation that has already set up an aviation museum using an abandoned Fokker 100 in Dhangadi. The revenue from that museum goes towards assisting cancer patients. This aviation museum at Kathmandu is a sequel to the Dhangadi venture. The trust has partnered with Caan to set up this museum. The aviation museum was funded by the savings of Captain Bed Upreti along with a Rs27 million loan from Everest Bank. A total of Rs 70 million has been invested in this project.

The main aim of this aviation museum is to educate and to inspire young Nepali to join the aviation sector. The museum’s goal is to provide information about the history of aviation, create awareness about the challenges and opportunities in the aviation sector. It is also aiming to be a tourist destination. There are more than 350 miniature models of aircrafts inside the museum from the Wright Brother’s first aircrafts to fighter planes from World War I and II.

Grade 9 to 12 students from all over Nepal can enter the museum free if they have a letter endorsing the visit from their schools. All students with Identity Card get 50 percent off on tickets.

The ticket is priced at Rs 300 for Nepali people, Rs 600 for foreigners and Rs 150 for the handicapped.

The museum will open from 10 AM to 5 PM from October to February and from 9:30 AM to 6:30 PM from March to September.

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